‘Different than’ analogy fallacies

I never understood the animosity directed by prescriptivists toward different than. For some reason there are pages with titles like “Never do this: ‘different than’“. Man, so if you’re willing to come down so harshly on a construction, you’ve got to have an air-tight argument against it, right? Well, not so much. The standard argument against different than is that different from makes a lot more sense by analogy to differs from (not *differs than). But that’s just plain silly.

First off, different isn’t derived from differ, as prescriptivists often imply, or even occasionally outright state. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, different comes from the Latin present participle of different-em, via French. Differ also comes from Latin, but from the verb differ-re. Now, in Latin, different-em was the present participle of differ-re, but that’s two languages removed from our own. So it’s simply sloppy research to claim/imply that different is derived from differ. Since they were different words when they arrived in English, there’s no reason why they need to use the same particle, from. And arguing that English grammar should be based on Latin grammar led to such idiotic edicts as “don’t split infinitives“, so don’t even try arguing that a Latin relationship is relevant here.

Alternately, it has been argued that because differs (from) and is different (from) are semantically equivalent, they must take the same preposition. But why would semantically equivalent phrases require the same preposition if they’re allowed to differ in the number of words and parts of speech they employ? And anyways, this isn’t the case for prefer and have a preference for:

(1a) I prefer candy to vitamins.
(1b) I have a preference for candy over vitamins.

In (1a), there must be no preposition between prefer and candy, while in (1b), there must be one (although it could probably be something other than for). Furthermore, there’re phrases similar to differ/is different that use other prepositions but have (at least approximate) truth-conditional equivalence:

(2a) His stuffed animal is dissimilar to mine.
(2b) His stuffed animal is not the same as mine.

So it doesn’t seem that semantic near-equivalence or similarity of form requires matching prepositions.

Finally, there’s the argument that than is “the conjunctive particle used after a comparative adjective or adverb” (OED, 1a), as in more than or grouchier than. Since different is not a comparative adjective, than can’t be used, the argument concludes. Ta da! Alas, this is only one function of than; you’ll note that it also follows certain non-comparatives: rather than, other than. Rather and other instead set up an opposition between two objects or sets. This, to my mind, is similar to what different does.

So what’s the big deal here? There’s no reason to mandate from on an analogy to differ. (By the way, that’s not the way analogy normally works in linguistics. Analogy usually is used to explain a novel form, such as the regularization of a verbal paradigm, not to justify the incorrectness of an existing form.) And than‘s not a bad fit here. Plus, different than has a usage that different from just can’t do:

(3a) The texture of fried jellyfish was different than/*from I’d expected.
(3b) The texture of fried jellyfish was different than/from what I’d expected.

(If you’re interested in more in-depth information about the status and usage of the different different prepositions, check out pages 341-343 of Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary to English Usage.) So let’s stop deriding different than; it’s valid, it’s useful, and it’s natural.

Summary: The arguments against different than just don’t hold water. Different isn’t derived from differ, so it doesn’t require from by that argument. Semantically similar phrases don’t require the same prepositions, so that argument falls as well. And than is used in other non-comparative contexts, so it’s a reasonable particle to use there. So go ahead and use different than if you feel like it sounds better.

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A lot of people make claims about what "good English" is. Much of what they say is flim-flam, and this blog aims to set the record straight. Its goal is to explain the motivations behind the real grammar of English and to debunk ill-founded claims about what is grammatical and what isn't. Somehow, this was enough to garner a favorable mention in the Wall Street Journal.

About Me

I'm Gabe Doyle, currently a postdoctoral scholar in the Language and Cognition Lab at Stanford University. Before that, I got a doctorate in linguistics from UC San Diego and a bachelor's in math from Princeton.

In my research, I look at how humans manage one of their greatest learning achievements: the acquisition of language. I build computational models of how people can learn language with cognitively-general processes and as few presuppositions as possible. Currently, I'm working on models for acquiring phonology and other constraint-based aspects of cognition.

I also examine how we can use large electronic resources, such as Twitter, to learn about how we speak to each other. Some of my recent work uses Twitter to map dialect regions in the United States.

Exactly. I don’t use “on accident” myself, but I kind of like the symmetry it creates. Again, that’s a novel form appearing by analogy — the way analogy normally works — rather than being shunned because of it.

Yep, and in almost all of these constructions with one or two set prepositions, it almost always turns out that originally, a smorgasbord of prepositions was used. The first citation in the OED for “different” has “different unto”, from 1526. They’ve also got “to” (which is still popular in British English), “than”, “from”, “then”, “against”, and “with”.

I’ve been called out! Well, I don’t understand what you mean when you say that the words you’ve listed are in a ‘similar group’, or as you call it on Yahoo!, of the ‘same grammatical declensions’. First off, ‘discriminated from’ sounds weird to me, and Google agrees. There are 180K hits for ‘discriminated from’ as opposed to 3M for ‘discriminated against’. Even ‘discriminated by’, which sounds abysmal to me, gets more hits (200K) than ‘discriminated from’.

Secondly, as I mentioned in the post, even if the group you describe has similarities in meaning or usage, that doesn’t require adjectives to use the same prepositions.

Thirdly, ‘different than’ is not an archaic usage. It’s been used consistently for quite some time. The thing about descriptivists is that we only discuss usages that are in use. ‘Different against’ and ‘different with’ were once popular, according to the OED, but you’d be hard-pressed to find any sane person proselytizing for a conversion to one of these forms. So I’m not saying that we should use ‘different than’ because it was used in Chaucer’s day, but rather saying that there’s nothing wrong with it since it’s been in use since at least 1644 (OED). Similarly, the reason I’m not supporting or opposing ‘chosen than’ is that no one ever says it, so there’s no reason to argue for or against it.

Finally, it’s clear that ‘different than’ can’t be used in the sentence you cite, but similarly, ‘different from’ can’t be used in (3a); we ‘different-thanners’ aren’t the only one lacking courage in our convictions. If we’re going to throw ‘different than’ out because it can’t be used in one environment, then we have to throw out ‘different from’, too, and then we can’t say anything.

Oh sure, that is a good rule, just use what sounds “better” to you. Realize, however, that if it sounds ignorant to others, then you will be so judged. Of course they themselves might be very ignorant for judging like that, but… well, don’t blame me, cuz I didn’t make the rules of life!

I’ve always thought of the meaning of difference in terms of a kind of spatial relationship. I imagine two things differing, and as they differ, they differ “away from” each other. They don’t differ towards each other, they don’t differ in whatever way a “-than” relationship would suggest, they differ (away) from each other. If X and Y are identical, and then Y takes on some new property, i see Y moving away from X in terms of similarity/difference. Thus, Y is now different from X. In my head, talking about two things being different, is talking about the ways in which they part, or move away, from each other.

I guess i just can’t help using a spatial image-schema when i think of the semantics of “different”. Maybe doing so is a mistake, i don’t know, but that’s what I’ve always thought about this whole different from/to/than debate.

“Different than” and “different from” have always sounded fine to my ear (though it depends a little on the context), but the use of “much different” rather than “very different” is something that just sounds really wrong to me but actually seems to be the more common usage among many people. I don’t know much about grammar, but to me “much” only sounds right with adjectives that imply “more something.” Correct to my ear: “very happy,” “very different,” “much happier,” maybe “much more different,” not “much different.” However, it sounds okay to me to say something is “not much different from…” though it sounds quite casual to me.

Does anyone have any grammar-based answers to this? Am I wrong to cringe slightly when my colleagues say something is “much different” than something else, particularly in formal presentations?

[…] gargantuan stubbornness. If you can bear the QES’s debasement of reason, plough on, then visit Motivated Grammar for Gabe Doyle’s sound quashing of the spurious objections to following different with than or […]

You rock. Seriously. I love this site, and your arguments against these burdensome and arbitrary rules are impressively airtight, in my not-very-humble opinion. The “none is/none are” controversy is what brought me here. You did a wonderful job defending the plural option. Thanks! I’m going to go read your “don’t split infinitives” post now; that one has always irked me and is patently ridiculous. Have a wonderful day, kindred spirit.

This article sucks compared to the other ones I’ve read. Where is the grammatical and historical backing for “different than”? Where are the citations from Fowler’s? It looks like you’ve made this a very personal argument because of how much you love this “idiom.” Anyways, how could anyone take this article seriously? This is some of the sloppiest writing I’ve ever seen!

Non-comparative “than” doesn’t sound good to me. “From” feels much more natural. If you want people to like your writing and not think you’re an idiot, do not use “different than” unless you’re making a comparison.

As for me, while the phrase “different than” may be more colloquial, it does not have the same geometric or set relationships implicit to “separate,” “chosen,” and “segregated.” “From” belongs after each of these words, because they describe something outside a set. Difference, on the other hand, has an algebraic component.

Where one can say “greater or lesser than,” “greater or lessor” may be idiomatically shortened to “different,” and thus followed by “than,” with perfectly sensible meaning.

Within the social sciences, then, this may sometimes be a more accurate descriptor, because difference among humans, within a humanist perspective, are all superficial. So saying someone is “different than” another person suggests that the difference is not as objective a thing than if it were “different from.” The former would suggest a difference that equates to a status indicator, and hence reveal a defensive posture, which “different from” cannot abide. Things that are “different from,” have no hope of ever being returned to the set from which they were originally expelled.

Perhaps the increased usage of “different than” in the United States, suggests a growing tolerance toward difference itself. There does seem to be a growing acceptance among younger generation Americans regarding matters of race, sex, gender-identity, cultural affiliation, etc., which would support the legitimacy of this usage.

“Different from” is usually recommended before a noun or pronoun, e.g.: “My shirt is different from yours.” “Different than” is usually recommended prior to a clause, e.g.: “My shirt is different than it was before.” It’s also recommended prio…

The reason I was reading this was to form an opinion on the expression (used by my coauthor) “numbers different among each other” which I suggested to replace by “different from each other”. Any opinions?

In your case, without knowing the context, I might urge you to avoid either phrase, both of which sound awkward to me, by using, “different numbers,” perhaps? What else could it be? “Different numbers across a range,” “an assortment of numbers,” “a range of unique numbers,” “a set of unique numbers,” or “a random assortment of unique numbers.” ? Hope this helps.

There’s a little essay on Symmetry, Axis, Love and Gravity on that blog, too, that your romantic side might enjoy too. Especially if you like Hendrix.

After reading this for the second time, I noticed another problem with this article — it’s not really correct to say that “rather” and “other” are not comparative. They both involve a comparative idea that references more than one thing, and they both end in the comparative “er” suffix.

It seems that “different” has some comparative meaning, and this is what allows “much” to be used. Just like “much better.” So for comparisons, we have a reason to think that “than” is possible. However, the negating effect of “from” seems to be more important semantically (like “stop him from…”), and “than” is best used where “from” is confusing — as in “a different system than mine.”

Short of any of those options, I would actually say “Numbers different than each other.” If you would say “Greater than” or “Lesser than,” and that will obviously be true by necessity of these numbers in question being unique numbers, then I don’t see why you shouldn’t say “Different Than” with complete impunity. If anyone challenges you, footnote me. ;)

I agree that “numbers different than each other,” doesn’t resonate.* But if you alter it slightly to “numbers different than one another,” it works perfectly fine.

I don’t believe that your phrasing can be said to be ABSOLUTELY wrong. That’s too big a claim, and english is far to adjustable. As I’ve stated already, the reason you can say the phrase you propose is that ‘different’ may be a synonym, replacement or substitute for ‘greater or lesser,’ in which case it makes perfect sense. Listen: “Numbers greater or lesser than each other” or “Numbers greater or lesser than one another.” Of course the easier way to say it would be “not equal numbers,” but you can use the term in a way that is not nonsensical.

You’re entitled to your opinion of course, but Google shows that an overwhelming majority of native speakers disagree with you. The margin is great enough that I feel justified in saying it’s absolutely wrong.

Thanks for the conceit, but I request one important distinction. The survey you graphed measures native publishers, not native speakers.

While I realize that Francois is likely working on an academic mathematical text (look up his published articles) in which poetic license and idiosyncrasy are frowned upon, if english speakers and publishers only conformed to the standard of publishing at time X, then the several thousands of words “invented” by Shakespeare would not be available for our use. Analogy is the living source of language, its deformations are by definition not logical, and its forms certainly not fixed. If you really believe otherwise, you may want to begin expunging Shakespeare’s words from your mental map of reality.

The “rules of [any language]” are matters of intellectual fashion. Your first post relies on “feeling natural” vs. “sounding like an idiot.” Sometimes the precise, correct description is the unnatural and unpopular one.

In the case I offered, I described that a slightly altered phrasing would make internally logical sense and be reasonably applicable to his use in a math thesis. It certainly wouldn’t make sense if he were describing a qualitative set, such as a production run of couches or a group of people, rather than an abstracted quantitive set of numbers.

And I didn’t recommend Francois use it, necessarily either. I also provided 6 alternatives for completely re-writing his sentence, 4 of which don’t even incorporate the word “different.”

(Until re-reading, I had thought that you were Francois’s co-author, so I was responding to be helpful. But now I realize now that you are probably different from him, so I’m writing to defend expression against mavenry. We’ll see which bone the mathematicians chose to pick, as it’s their dog in the race, not ours.)

Thanks to all who were so kind as to comment. All were perfectly clear and helpful. What we wanted to get across was that a certain set of numbers are all different, that is, no two are equal. I had also hit on the possibility of dropping “from each other” or “among each other”, and am grateful for your support of this option.

“Different than” always stands out like a sore thumb to my discerning ears because it sounds as weird to me as “separate than”, “distinct than” or “disconnected than”. The simple reason is that I didn’t grow up with it in my local dialect.

Of course, that doesn’t make it “wrong” though. I freely admit, as a descriptivist, that language is not a monolithic and unchanging structure and that my dialect is not superior to others. Even with that knowledge though, it will still be difficult to stop the frisson of discomfort whenever I hear “different than” on American TV shows (or the slight shudder when Americans say “if I would’ve known” instead of “if I had known”).

You can put yourself in my shoes by saying the sentences: “the power cable is disconnected than the modem” or “is your soul separate than your body?”.

People often get very emotional when they hear English being used in a way which is different from how they grew up using it and it can end in arguments. The “aluminium/aluminum” debate was not settled even when IUPAC chose the former as the international form and Americans still use irregular “aluminum” pronunciation that Sir Humphrey Davy was forced by his prescriptivist chemist colleagues to abandon.

I have an American friend and at the beginning of our friendship, it was very difficult for him to understand me at times.

He isn’t a linguist and had until that point never left his state, let alone the country. He got genuinely annoyed that I didn’t pronounce the post-vocalic R, and in response I joked that there was a T in “atom”, not a D (Atom and Eve). He corrected my pronunciation of “roof” (I pronounce it as the sound in “boot” and he as the sound in “book”), he didn’t understand what I meant when I talked about “adverts” as he’d always called them “ads”. We were able to communicate perfectly, but at times we’d both say things that we’d raise an eyebrow at. It actually made for a very interesting friendship and helped us both to accept each other’s dialects.